the Sierra Nevada (U.S.). He is a public speaker and raconteur. Early art studies Adams was initially drawn to traditional, representational art. As a young man, he collected adventure books from the "Golden Age" of American illustration. He credits these romantic tales, illustrated by artists like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Dean Cornwell, with not only inspiring his art but interesting him in the world beyond the shores of America. Adams wanted to learn how to paint like the turn-of-the-century painters did, but he couldn't keep up with the curriculum at the Instituto de Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (1969), Otis Art Institute and Art Center School (1970). In 1970 he was introduced to Theodore Lukits (1897–1992), a well-known painter of portraits, still lifes and landscapes who had been teaching in Los Angeles since 1924. Studies with Theodore Lukits Peter Adams entered the atelier of Lukits in 1970. Adams has described entering the Lukits studio, which was lined with plaster casts of Roman and Greek sculpture, student’s drawings and Chinese antiques "like walking into another century” because the Lukits Atelier resembled those of the 19th-century Parisian painters' he admired. Adams was to study with Lukits for seven years and eventually he became his apprentice, but like all of Lukits' new students, he began by "drawing from the antique," doing charcoal or graphite portraits of marbles and plaster casts of ancient Roman and Greek statuary. These studies taught Adams to understand the tonal gradations of light and shadow. Advancement in a traditional atelier is based on mastery, so Adams moved from working from plaster casts to simple still life set-ups only after his instructor was satisfied with his work. As a culmination of his graphite work Adams did a series of fanciful still life drawings of Asian antiques that set the direction for the still life works of his professional career. Eventually, he began to work in color, painting still life set-ups under the colored lights that Lukits used to simulate conditions an artist might find in the outdoors. He subsequently attended Lukits' anatomy and life drawing classes. Adams also began painting “En plein air”, directly from the landscape. He painted with Arny Karl (1940–2000) a fellow Lukits student who had already been painting out of doors for a number of years. Using the pastel medium, the two went on plein air trips to the local foothills in